Port Sunlight in the 1920s: Part 1. (Reg Keen)

Reg Keen, my father, wrote to me in 1978 about his childhood in Port Sunlight.

My parents moved to Port Sunlight when I was about 6 months old (summer of 1909). Life was very happy there during my early years with lots of space, lots of trees and flowers and lots of little pals. On reaching the age of 5 (1913) I was enrolled at the village school, Church Drive. The Junior school headmistress was Miss Slater, an elderly spinster, and my class teacher was Miss Peacock aged about 25. When the time came for me to enter the senior school (aged about 10, in 1918) the headmaster was Mr JA Simister, ably supported by Mr Higson and Mr Hartley Hughes who later became the first headmaster of Grove Street School in New Ferry. We also had Mr Lawrie ("Lorrie" or "Jimmy") and James Ramsey Smith, a trainee of Chester College, who was very popular but eventually left to become the headmaster of The Delves Schoolhouse, a village school built by Sir Delves Broughton in a village near Chester, Wybunbury.

Church Drive Schools (posted on Facebook by Joanne Phillips)

About the middle of my school life, 1918/19, I was away ill with chickenpox when all the school was moved to the newly built New Chester Road school, while the children from the old village school now called the Lyceum took over Church Drive. As I was away ill at the time I was not included in the shift to New Chester Road and I was pushed in with all the Lyceum kids at Church Drive, which meant finding new pals altogether. They all seemed to originate from homes nearer to the Soap Works and Trafalgar Village.

In my young days the village was run by the school heads, the estate office staff (2) and the local parson Mr Hooke who was the choirmaster at the village church. There was also a Major Ormerod, a little tin god Territorial Army officer who held a lot of power in the village until after the first World War. He gave the land known as Ormerod Gardens, to become part of Mayer Park around 1965.

In the village there was the Boys' Brigade in which Grandad (Reg's father) used to bang the big drum; a Scout troop; a Guide troop; three football teams and the Band of Hope which was tied up with the church  in Bebington Road near Grove Street.

The senior football team (amateurs mainly) played at The Tins, Poolbank Enclosure in Central Road in the village, by the Cottage Hospital and Church Drive School which was next door to the Church; so all the important buildings were grouped together. They were in the midst of open fields abutting Central road which led to the main Offices of the soap factory.

There were two pubs, the Bridge Inn close to the bridge over The Dell, and the Railway Inn at the edge of the village near Bebington Station. There was a Catholic school, St John's, on Bebington Road, but it was NOT part of the village. There was also a Liberal Club in the village, as of course old Billy Lever was a Liberal in politics.

Most of the houses were laid out on a plan like a flattened "O" with traffic roads back and front of the blocks of houses. They were arranged round plots of allotments which could be rented by the householders if they wished to grow anything for themselves, but there was so much greenery about the place, more was not really needed. It was a very pleasant spot to be brought up in at a time when most of the kids living in nearby towns had never seen anything actually growing apart from a few apple trees. A cousin of mine on a visit to Port Sunlight in 1920/21 spent lots of time in Grandad's allotment looking under the potato plant stems to try and find some potatoes, not knowing they grew underground.

The village was always choked with hundreds of men and young women going to and from the soap works each day, including Saturday mornings in those days, of course. The nearest tram route terminus then was at the Toll Bar corner in New Ferry where a tram service ran every 10 minutes to Woodside for the ferry to Liverpool; or workers could walk to New Ferry and down New Ferry Lane to the New Ferry / Rock Ferry steamer to Liverpool. There were a great number of workers using the river to get to work at Billy Lever's soap works, while an equal number went the other way to work at "the Yard" - Cammell Lairds shipyard. The Sunlight railway station was not built until much later, about the middle '20s I think.

More in the next... 

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and

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Reminiscences of Wirral 1910s-1930s - coming up!

Over the next few days I am going to type-up and present a long letter full of reminiscences of Bebington, Port Sunlight and Birkenhead on the Wirral, which my Dad wrote to me in April 1978. He was born in Port Sunlight in October 1908 so he was almost 70. He was remembering things that happened between the 1910s and 1930s.

I don't have many photographs so what I put up will mostly be borrowed from other blogs, to which I will give credit of course!

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Between now and 26 February 2016 you can earn a free Kindle Book by simply downloading and registering the free Kindle reading app, or buying a Kindle Book, or buying a book. Here are some of mine to get you started!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_3?ie=UTF8&text=Sue+Millard&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Sue+Millard&sort=relevancerank

And, rather less specific  - "Castles, Customs and Kings - Volume 2" by English Historical Fiction Authors, edited by Debra Brown and Sue Millard, is available at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015X0V2Y4

and

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Castles-Customs-Kings-English-Historical-ebook/dp/B015X0V2Y4

Merry Exhortations

Now look. I controlled my urge to slap you for posting Happy Hallowe'en messages, didn't I? I do not need passive-aggressive exhortations about the kind of Christmas greetings I should be exchanging. "Merry Christmas" is fine, but as we haven't even reached Stir Up Sunday--Just. Not. Yet.

Blimey, Elijah!

Last month, the Cumbria Rural Choirs presented Mendelssohn's oratorio, "Elijah".

It is a lot of years (better hadn't say how many) since I first sang it, as a soprano in our school choir. We performed it in the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool, one of the great Merseyside singing spaces, along with "Paddy's Wigwam", the Catholic cathedral. Yes, we sang there too. Doris Parkinson forced us to be VERY good indeed.

Thinking back, at seventeen I found the story of "Elijah" a confusing one. Having sung it again now, this time as a tenor and a grannie, I realise the music carries it, from the opening curse to Elijah's triumphant gallop into heaven; but my word, the action is nasty.

Here's a run-down:

1 Elijah gets a cob on because the Israelites don't worship his god.
2 He curses Israel, saying his god will stop the rain for three years, and all the children begin to die of hunger and thirst (nice, huh?)
3 He challenges the priests of Israel's other religion (Baal) to a burn-the-bullock contest.
4 He gets lucky, lightning strikes when it's his turn so everybody says his god is the winner. The spectators seize on the priests of Baal and kill them.
5 He prays for rain and a storm comes and produces a flood (this bit probably wouldn't have gone down well in Carlisle 10 years ago).
6 Yay, god is good. Cups of tea in the interval.
7 Ahab and Jezebel are pissed off that Elijah had all their priests killed (did I forget to mention that it was his idea?).
8 They wind up the people into a murderous mood.
9 Elijah legs it into the wilderness (you can see why), tells himself he's a failure, and is comforted by the angels.
10 Then (the ultimate Deus ex Machina) his god takes him to heaven in a Fy-erry Fy-erry Charr-Yot with Fy-erry Fy-erry Horses.
11 Wrap and curtain.

I have no doubt that Mendelssohn's contemporaries thought this was a jolly good story. The oratorio has undoubtedly survived, and is still sung with enthusiasm in both English and German.

I find the whole thing much more thought provoking these days than I did back in the 1960s. Maybe it's due to the extensive TV coverage of current events.

Even if we only look at the first couple of points in the story: "You aren't worshipping the same god as I do, so I'm going to curse and punish you." Disregard the Christian / Abrahamic skin under which Mendelssohn wrote, and just consider the premise. Isn't this the same excuse that's given for war by groups like ISIS and Al-Quaeda?

The second point, a three-year drought and resulting famine, is something we're all familiar with from news coverage. What I can't buy is the idea that a prophet calls down such suffering on his people. I'd accept that he might cash in on existing events and say that the drought is because they have been wicked; there are plenty of precedents for religious fundamentalists claiming that disasters are 'intended' to turn other people towards their own beliefs - and in the case of war, creating merry hell with the same intention.

Back to "Elijah". The music in the oratorio is wonderful, and Andrew Mahon, the young bass-baritone who sang the part of the prophet last month, has a part of my heart forever for his wonderful voice and dramatic interpretation. But I can't put Elijah himself on a heroic pedestal. Yeah, I know, it is just a story. So is Noah's Flood. Biblical hokum at its best. But it has a lot of modern parallels, and for me, Elijah-the-prophet needs to be dropped into the same deep hole as any other religious extremist.

The M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction

On behalf of The M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction

"We are pleased to announce a new annual award for the best in historical fiction. In keeping with the values of our honoree, the late M.M. Bennetts, author of May 1812 and Of Honest Fame, the focus will be on literary quality and historical accuracy. You can read about M.M. and her work HERE.

"Please join our Award Facebook group HERE. It's an easy way to have questions answered and keep up with the news.

"Submissions are accepted immediately through January 31, 2015. Please help us spread the word to authors and publishers. Authors may enter the contest via the Submissions page.

"The award for the winning novel published in 2014 will be announced at the luncheon of the Historical Novel Society Conference on June 27, 2015 and immediately following, it will be posted on [its own] site, various social media, and news outlets.

"Expenses are being met through a $10 Submissions Fee and Donations via Paypal or credit card. Donations of any amount can be made using any currency with or without a Paypal account. We are working toward status as a nonprofit association. Please help us provide this tribute to M.M. Bennetts and our first annual winner. All assistance is greatly appreciated."

Our 'Osses - when did our Fells become "ponies"?

Where does the name “the Fell pony” come from?

There is very scant evidence of British ponies in the 12 centuries between the end of Roman rule and the era of Elizabeth I. Every positive statement that can be made about them has a “but” attached to it.

Harness fittings and small pony-size 3.5” to 4” bits have survived from the Roman period and there are some sculptures which portray horses in Britain as small, eg the Roman tombstone to Flavinus in Hexham Abbey (on display at Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, in 2014), but we don’t have evidence of a local Cumbrian type, much less a breed. 

The Bayeux Tapestry shows a pack pony smaller than the fighting cavalry ponies who seem to be about 14 hands, but it is way too far south in its origins to be a reference for Northern England. 

Paintings throughout history show horses in the service of monarchs and generals, but no-one showcased the working ponies of the inhospitable North. 

We may guess that they were around—but who’s going to write about a scruffy pickup truck when there are Ferraris or Rolls Royces to admire?  

Literature

Eventually, when printed material becomes more common, evidence of local ponies appears as it does today, in literature and in trivia such as advertisements. The term “Galloway” comes into use in Shakespeare’s time (1597) referring to a small horse in common use.  Daniel Defoe in the early 1700s describes Scotland as having “the best breed of strong low horses in Britain, if not in Europe … from whence we call all small truss-strong riding horses Galloways.”

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The most specific references to local Cumbrian horses are notices in newspapers seeking information about “missing” saddle horses. “DARK BAY GALLOWAY, Eleven Hands and a Half high…. the Mane and Tail rather inclined to black, and had two or three white Saddle Marks… Reward for information leading to retrieval.”

The word “pony”

An explanation is frequently trotted out that the word “pony” traces to the Celtic horse goddess Epona. Sadly that doesn’t really hold water because her name had disappeared from common English usage by the 6^th century AD—a thousand years before the earliest known date for “powny” which is a diary entry in 1659: "Diary 18 June, I caused to bring home the powny..." and 1675 W. Cunningham's Diary, 24 May, "Sent to Glasgow for a gang of shoo's to Cuninghamheid's pownie." Both are cited by the Oxford English Dictionary which adds that “pony” comes from Scottish, apparently from French poulenet “little foal”, and that the Irish pónaí and Scottish Gaelic pònaidh are derived from the English word and not the other way around. 

In 1710  Defoe describes characters riding on “Bastard Turks, half-bred Barbs, and Union Ponies, a Kind of Horses foaled upon the Borders, and occasionally owning either Country”. That might mean he is thinking of Scottish Galloways or predecessors of the English Fell. However, since Defoe was sent to Edinburgh in 1706 to worm his way into the confidence of the Scottish Parliament and help secure the Union of England and Scotland, he may simply be poking fun at himself and at recent political history. In any case, later in the pamphlet he remarks, “it is not my business as a Historian, to be over sollicitous about the Truth of Facts” (unusual honesty on the part of a secret agent and a journalist). Perhaps it’s safest to assume he has his tongue firmly in his cheek, and just to note his use of the word “ponies.”

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Spelt “poney” the word appears in 1838 in local advertisements in the Westmorland Gazette where it is linked to the terms “Scotch horse” or “Galloway” but not yet to “Fell”. Through the 19^th Century the horses of Cumberland and Westmorland were still referred to as Fell-Galloways, and I have heard farmers even in the 21st C using the term “Gallower” about Fell ponies. 

Agricultural horses, cobs, Hackneys, Galloways and "fell ponies"

Local shows - mostly held in September after the hay crop had been cleared from the fields - divided classes for horses and ponies into various types: Agricultural horses (ie, Clydesdales and their crosses and others suitable to pull farm equipment); cobs; Hackneys; and ponies. These "ponies" were not defined as a breed but usually the classes specified height limits such as "under 14 hands" or "under 13 1/2 hands".

The earliest use of the term "fell pony" (without a capital F) that I've found so far is from the Kendal newspaper, the Westmorland Gazette, October 1953, reporting on the horse sale at Dent where trade in "fell ponies" had been better than in previous years (so the term was in use before 1853). The Penrith newspaper, the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald, 6th September, 1885 reported that at Dufton show "the entry of fell ponies was good and the competition keen". The lack of a capital F, as opposed to the G of Galloway or H of Hackney, suggests that the term "fell pony" was not a breed name yet: it was being used for "a pony suitable to live at the fell" or "pony that has been living at the fell", in the same way that modern sheep breeds like Swaledales, Roughs and Herdwicks could be grouped under the one term "fell sheep". This version of the term "fell pony" as any fell-going pony is supported by a slightly later report in the Penrith Observer of 25th October, 1887 which stated that "the Judges for Shorthorns, Cobs, Ponies and Whitefaced Sheep were Mr. W. Ellwood, Skelling and Mr, Bousfield, Langwathby," and reports under Special Prizes for Ponies the following result: "Fell-gone pony, with foal at foot - 1, Messrs. Dargue; 2. Mr.Hutchinson." (with thanks to Dorothy Ewin of Dufton)

The Polo and Riding Pony Society

In 1893 the Polo Pony Society became the Polo and Riding Pony Society and began to register native pony types suitable for breeding light horses for sport and recreation. It registered the ponies by the areas in which they were located, and stipulated that they must be at least three-quarters “native” bred. This is when the names of areas such as Wales and the Scottish Highlands began to be linked to pony registrations, and the idea of a local breed with recorded ancestry emerged in place of a local “type”. 

Agricultural Show reports

The Cumberland and Westmorland Herald reports from agricultural shows at first described classes as scheduled for Ponies not over 13½ hands, Cobs over 13½ hands and under 14½ hands, and Hackneys over 14½ hands. Hesket-New-Market (1894) and Shap (1895) were two of the first shows, after Dufton, that offered classes specifically for “Fell ponies.” 
 

Four years later the Polo and Riding Pony Society Stud Book registered the first 2 stallions and 6 mares in its Fell section.

But we still call them ’osses, even now.

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Defoe, (1724–1727) A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies

Cumberland Chronicle or Whitehaven Intelligencer, April and May 1777

Defoe, 1710, The True Account of the Last Distemper and Death of Tom Whigg (Part ii. p. 19) 

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Sue Millard's book web site, Jackdaw E Books, now does gift vouchers http://www.jackdawebooks.co.uk/vouchers.htm 

How to Make a Small Fortune from Writing

Let me spin you a yarn about my day. Today, for instance.

I rose at 7 am, and fed our animals. Just before 8 am, I hoisted a rucksack-cum-shopping-trolley of books into the car and set off on a 40 mile journey to a "pop up book shop" as part of a brand-new local Literary Festival. Nota bene - the experienced indie author will always choose to transport books on wheels rather than directly by hand. Thus, I was instantly able to identify same, and distinguish them from the unpractised bag-and-box brigade, when we converged at 9am on the library which was our destination.

After a short round of greetings to those whom I knew in the PUBS (sighs... this does not mean the Rose and Crown. It is an acronym for Pop Up Book Shop) I left my stout plastic butcher's-tray of books in what I trusted were capable hands, and drove home again to get a few things done. Recycling was high on the list: for instance, plastic bags, and dog-food tins.

Just after 2:30 pm I set off with another load of recycling and the empty shopping trolley. The library at 3:45 pm was full of people behind and around the book tables, but it was pretty clear from their behaviour that they were writers, not buyers. Still, I had a very interesting conversation with a fellow historical novelist sitting in the "Ask the Author Anything" area, who was kind enough to say she didn't consider this "work" and also told me that the stall holding writers had laughed a lot while reading my Dragon Bait. I was relieved to find that was because it was funny, rather than peculiar.

Dragon Bait was my star of the day - one sale to a MOTP (work it out) and one to a fellow writer. I bought a collection of short stories, and intend to study them to learn about modern SS style. Well, they were written by a chap who teaches SS writing as a specialism at the University. I also bought a historical novel by the lady in the AAA area, and very nearly doubled my day's takings when she offered me change from my £20 in the form of.... wait for it... a £20 note and a couple of £1 coins. Being honest (or stupid) I suggested she reconsidered this.  I really should have offered, as part payment for her book, a copy of Dragon Bait, which she had said she intended to buy - but there we are, I too can be a bit slow after an earlier-than-usual start.

When I was re-packing I couldn't locate some of the books I had taken to the PUBS (stop it!). The slim poetry pamphlet, it seemed, had too closely resembled the kids' activity books - they were printed by the same firm - and the two activity books had not been displayed individually because they were the same thickness. The three items all spent the day in the same stack, and registered no sales at all. Moral - if taking several books which are similar, pack them in widely separated batches so that even those who are unfamiliar with your stuff will realise they are not all the same thing.

The accounts for today look like this:

Car mileage: 160 miles (40 miles there and back, morning and afternoon)
Parking fees: £1 x 2 (very reasonable and handy for the venue)
Donation per sale to the PUBS (stop sniggering at the back please): £1 per book, ie £2

Costs: £4 outgoings, car fuel discounted as part of recycling run... which is frankly bloody optimistic)

Book Sale: £6 x 2

Income: £12

Net income: £8 (see remark on Costs)

Purchases: errrrm... *coughs*

See, this is why writers are rubbish at business. Having "made" a few quid at the expense of 4 hours of driving, I blew it all and more by buying 2 books that cost (together) more than I had actually taken, which in any case I can't dignify by the term "profit" (see remark on Costs!)

All in all, a very typical writer's "sales" day. Lots of batting around, lots of jawing, a bit of networking, a bit of positive feedback, and one or two lessons learned.

Oh, and how to make a small fortune from writing?

Start with a large one.

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Dragon Bait is available from Sue's web site, http://www.jackdawebooks.co.uk/dragonbait.htm  and on Amazon Kindle, UK or Amazon Kindle, USA.